187. The Man Who Would Be Everything

Boris Johnson -- mayor of London, biographer of Churchill, cheese-box painter and tennis-racket collector -- answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 0:46Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 1:27Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 2:10Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 2:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  On this week's episode, Boris Johnson drops by to chat about being mayor of London, a writer, a great admirer of, and now biographer of, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a potential future Prime Minister himself, and, most singularly, he chats about just being Boris Johnson.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  I love, I love old wooden tennis rackets.

• 3:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  There are other old things he loves.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  I collect old cheese boxes.

• 3:21Stephen J. Dubner?

  At one point in the conversation, the need arose to remove his shoes.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm going to take it off. I'm just going to see if I can see what's in that. These are so, these are so warm that you can't, hang on.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 3:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  Welcome to Frequently Asked Questions, the Boris Johnson edition.

• 3:51Speaker 02

  From WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 4:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  So let's begin. Please tell our listeners exactly who you are and what you do.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm Boris Johnson. I'm the mayor of London, and that means I manage most things in the city that require a strategic view. So the transport, the police, the fire, a huge number of stuff like that, a lot of, a lot of the building of new homes I'm responsible for, planning the strategic direction of the greatest city on earth. We have now in London 72 billionaires, which is more than New York. New York has only 43 billionaires. And Paris has only 18 billionaires, and Moscow has, I think, 40. So, you know, London is to the billionaire as the, as the jungles of Sumatra are to the orangutan.

• 5:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Congratulations on that.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  We're proud of that. I mean, we're quite proud of it. I mean, and let's be clear, we're, we have mixed feelings, but-

• 5:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  I'm sure you like your poor people too, though.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Exactly right. And the argument that we make is that the presence of these exotic creatures, the billionaires, is, is good for the whole ecosystem. And they, they support by their, by their billionaire activities, you know, asking people to bring the car around to the front of the hotel or whatever they do and, and, you know, going to, that's all, that, that adds to the economic activity in the city, as I'm sure you, you, you understand.

• 5:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, before we get too far, I, I want to say, welcome to New York City, which is your birthplace, yes?

• 5:44Speaker 01

  It is.

• 5:45Stephen J. Dubner?

  Many people don't know.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  And a city I absolutely love.

• 5:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  We should also say that you are standing again, running again for the House of Commons in this ring, yes?

• 5:54Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. Yes, a place I left about seven years ago.

• 5:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  So for those who know you as the colorful, let's say, if we had to pick one adjective, mayor of London, we'll get into that.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 6:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  I think many people don't know-

• 6:05Speaker 01

  I can, I can use that now. I can, I can handle that. Okay.

• 6:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  I chose not to go with Bombastic. Many people don't know what a really wonderful writer you are.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  That was right of you.

• 6:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  Well, yeah, it was, until I ended up using Bombastic. In a sideways manner, but I really think you're a wonderful writer. And in fact, before you became a politician, you were a mostly very well regarded journalist, having written several books and your latest book is called The Churchill Factor, How One Man Made History. It's being published, I believe, in the US on this very day as we speak.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  This is publication day.

• 6:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  Congratulations.

• 6:37Speaker 01

  And I'm very proud. It's a great thing to be published in America. It's doing well in London.

• 6:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  It's doing very well in the UK and I'm sure it will do well here. It's a very good book. He's a fascinating character. Your interpretation of him is interesting on every page. Here's what I want to ask you, however, we're used to politicians here and in the UK writing books about themselves in order to position themselves for future elections. You having written about yourself, and I know you've been asked this question, but I do want to call your attention to just a couple of passages that I found particularly interesting, where you write about Churchill and one could imagine without a whole lot of mental choreography that you appreciate these things about him because there are some parallels to you. Here are a couple of bits of descriptions of Churchill in the book.

• 7:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  "I knew you write that he had a mastery of the art of speech making, and I knew even then, this was when you were a child, that this art was dying out. I knew that he was funny and irreverent and that even by the standards of his time, he was politically incorrect. He was eccentric, over the top, camp with his own special trademark clothes, those wonderful jumpers, jumpsuits, and a thoroughgoing genius." Now again, I don't mean to put you on the spot and say, would Dr. Freud or one of his many colleagues look into those words and see you writing about him, him thinking about yourself?

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Well, you know, maybe, but, look, of course, all British, there's no question that Churchill casts a massive shadowy spell. He intoxicates all British politicians who've come out and particularly male conservatives of a certain type who yearn to be like Winston. Of course, that's true, but you know, I've got more in common frankly with a one eyed pterodactyl or a calamata olive, but he was a very remarkable guy and, I mean, when I say remarkable, that's an understatement. He was, you know, he was not a big guy, by the way. He was five foot, six and a half inches tall, had a 31 inch chest. He was a shrimpy sort of guy who built himself up partly by dumbbells, partly by sheer self-projection to become this incredible.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Buffalo-like figure. I discovered amazing things about him when I was writing the book. And I concluded at the end, to get to your point, that he just was running on a different kind of biological fuel than the rest of us. And he was able, what really knocked me out, you know, you're a journalist, I'm a journalist, we know what it takes to write a piece fast and all the rest of it. But he could drink red wine, white wine, whiskey, liqueurs, dinner, knock off, have a huge cigar, 10 o'clock or later, he would go to his office, stump up and down, and dictate until 3:00 in the morning, perfect, brilliant,

• 9:31Speaker 01

  exquisited prose, that amongst other things helped him to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Now, I can write pretty fast after lunch, even if I've drunk some alcohol. I cannot do it after dinner. I just cannot. I don't know anybody. Do you know anybody who can do it?

• 9:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  No, I don't.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  No. So I think there was something strange going on with him.

• 9:52Stephen J. Dubner?

  Well, maybe he had better whiskey than we do. I don't know.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  I don't know. No, I think he just, he just had more energy. And, you know, every day, he would write thousands of words of memos. He wrote more published journalism and prose than, I think, than Dickens and Shakespeare combined. So, you know, he was prodigious.

• 10:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  The Churchill Factor is the book. It's really extraordinary, and I encourage anyone within the sound of my voice to read it. Now, Mr. Mayor, I'm about to ask you a series of questions unrelated to Churchill, largely at least.

• 10:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 10:23Stephen J. Dubner?

  These questions, heretofore known as frequently asked questions.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 10:27Stephen J. Dubner?

  And we plan to make this a regular feature, asking exactly the same questions to many notable people.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  You plan to make this a regular feature, but this is the first time that you've tried it on some guinea pig.

• 10:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  Not only is this the first time, so you're the guinea pig, but if you fail...

• 10:40Speaker 01

  If this goes really bad, this is gonna be the end. Okay, well, let me, okay, well, this is...

• 10:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  So I just wanted to say that to encourage you to do your best. This is not...

• 10:46Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 10:48Stephen J. Dubner?

  I...

• 10:48Speaker 01

  You sound like my grandmother at the beginning, you know, darling, just do your best. Doesn't matter what happens.

• 11:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  Let's begin with this. Tell me in 60 seconds or less, if you can, what you actually do in a given day, you particularly as mayor of London.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  I have endless meetings and give huge, a huge and unbearable number of speeches. And I take decisions.

• 11:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  Question, what's the best investment you've ever made, financial, emotional, education, whatever, that led to your getting to where you are today?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  It was, it was getting hold of a, of a secondhand copy of Abboton Mansfield's Greek grammar, Accidents and Syntax, without which I would not be where I am today.

• 11:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  You were how old at the point?

• 11:43Speaker 01

  I was, actually, I was rather, it was rather late in life. I was, I was all of, all of 11 by the time I really started. It was, I, my career, my career in Greek was, was, I'm afraid, did not get off to the usual cracking start. I was very slow.

• 11:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  Who has been the biggest influence on your life and work and why?

• 12:02Speaker 01

  Well.

• 12:03Stephen J. Dubner?

  Living, dead, someone you knew, someone you didn't know?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  You know, what do you mean, apart from my, well, no, well, we, it's obviously my parents.

• 12:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  You know, that kind of, I suppose culturally, my biggest, my biggest influence has been, I would say Homer, the poetry of Homer. That, that was the thing that really knocked me out when I was about 16. Having mastered Abboton Mansfield, I then went on to Homer. And that was massive for me because Homer is all about failure and mortality, which is, which is, you know, you've got to understand, you pretty, when you reach my age.

• 12:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  What do you worry about when you go to sleep at night?

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Uh, I tend, you know, I, it is, the, the time between my head hitting the pillow and being, you know, folded in the arms of Morpheus is so short. I didn't think I think about anything. I, I never have any trouble getting to sleep.

• 12:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  They say that's the mark of an honest man.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Well, I'm certain, in my case, I certainly don't, you know, it's a long time since I've had a, had a sleepless night. I do burn the candle at both ends. So what sleep I get, I tend to, I tend to zonk out pretty firmly, I'm afraid.

• 13:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  I'd like to ask you and forgive the impertinence, and I guess you don't have to answer, but I'm gonna ask you anyway. I'd like to know your net worth today compared to that of your parents when you were a teenager, and you can mentally adjust for inflation if you'd like.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's incredibly difficult to compute because, you see, what's happening in London is that the kinds of properties that members of the bourgeoisie could afford in, say, the 1960s or 1970s are now absolutely beyond the reach of people of my generation or certainly of my children's generation. So it is very difficult to say. I mean, think about my grandparents. They had absolutely colossal house in, where the hell it was, St. John's Wood, which, you know, no way anybody in my family could now afford a house in

• 14:04Speaker 01

  St. John's Wood. So it's something weird. So London's arrival as this global city that everybody wants to live in, and, you know, of course, it has many of the problems of New York, but London really is attracting huge amounts of international investment. It's got a massive population boom going on. The success of London is having a weird effect of actually making it very hard for Londoners to afford to live there. And that's actually my single biggest challenge now as mayor is to build enough affordable housing for our people, and we've got to do it. I mean, I haven't answered your question. You know, I would say, you know, in many ways, I would say that in income terms, probably

• 14:45Speaker 01

  even deflated, my income is bigger than my parents was and certainly bigger than my grandparents was, even deflated, but.

• 14:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  But you're not as house-rich.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  But in assets, in assets, there's no question that there is a steady impoverishment of the bourgeoisie, and we need to address it.

• 15:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Tell me something you've habitually, throughout your life, spent too much money on but don't regret.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Um, it's haircuts. I mean, haircuts. I spend a lot of-

• 15:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  Have you ever paid for a haircut?

• 15:20Speaker 01

  No, no, I'm joking. I think, I think, um, I've, I've, I do tend, I do, I do believe that you should try and have good shoes, if you're, you know, decent pair of shoes.

• 15:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  Where do you get your shoes? I'm curious.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Um, London.

• 15:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, what, what, what shop though? I'm curious.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Um, where are they? Hang on there. I think they're, they're, um-

• 15:40Stephen J. Dubner?

  You're gonna take them off?

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm gonna take them off. I'm just gonna see if I can see what's in the, in the, um, sort of thing. These are so, these are so worn that you can't, hang on. Uh, oh, go on.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Churches. Churches. Churches. Churches shoes. They're very good. Sorry.

• 16:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  Fine British brand.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  My, my, my heel has more or less rubbed out the, the gold lettering. I can just about see it. Churches shoes. Those are fantastic shoes and I, I would, I would recommend those. They won't let you down. They won't let you down.

• 16:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Coming up on Freakonomics Radio, the mayor of London is happy to share his computer passwords.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Sorry, wait, wait, they're shaking their heads here. No, no, no, I don't. No, no, no, I, I, I'm Mick. I want you to know it's very, it's mainly Greek. I use lots of algorithms.

• 16:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  And fed up with England's poor showing in the World Cup, he has an idea.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  I really think we should be more like, you know, we, we should have like, what was it? Uday and Qusay Hussein with, with, you know, we should, when, when they come back next time, we should just, you know, threaten to do something in the changing rooms of those guys unless they, they sharpen up. It's just unbelievable.

• 17:10Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 17:54Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 18:15Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 18:47Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 19:20Speaker 02

  From WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 19:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  Welcome back to Frequently Asked Questions, a new and potentially permanent feature in which we ask a fixed set of questions to notable guests. Our inaugural guest is Boris Johnson, the mayor of London. I asked him, what's one thing he owns that he should throw out, but probably never will?

• 19:49Speaker 01

  I love, I love old wooden tennis rackets. I don't know why. I just, I love playing with them, too. And one of the reasons, several reasons why I'm very bad at tennis. But I just find them a gorgeous thing. And they, yes, they neither help my tennis, nor they serve no practical purpose. But I love them. But I won't get rid of them. I won't get rid of them.

• 20:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Let me ask you this. What do you collect, if anything, besides old wooden tennis rackets?

• 20:27Speaker 01

  I collect old cheese boxes.

• 20:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  No.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Old camembert and brie cheese. I love, I love those boxes that are made of very, very beautifully shaved wood, so that they, they have this very smooth texture.

• 20:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  Are they round?

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Round is good, or triangular, sometimes very large round. And on those, believe me, you can, if you, you can paint and get the most wonderful effect. I don't know why. I just love painting things on cheese boxes.

• 21:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  Another Churchillian parallel, the painting. I don't know about the cheese boxes.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  It sounds a bit like George W. Bush, actually. But I kind of, I love it.

• 21:13Stephen J. Dubner?

  Here's a question. I'm curious to know if you'll answer it all. What can you tell me about your strategy for creating and/or managing computer passwords?

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I try and do roughly the same one all the time. Sorry, they're shaking their heads here. No, no, no, I don't. No, no, no, I'm Mick. I want you to know, it's very common. It's mainly Greek. I use lots of algorithms. You're not going to crack it. Alan Turing wouldn't crack my computer passwords.

• 21:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  Favorite book or author other than yourself?

• 21:46Speaker 01

  I think it's a ridiculous question in many ways, but the book I can always read with pleasure and find a laugh on every page is Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. There's no question. And it's the book that made me want to be a journalist and that and All the President's Men.

• 22:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  Favorite food?

• 22:05Speaker 01

  Curry.

• 22:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Really? What kind?

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Indian. Hot.

• 22:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  What do you like? Would it be a fish curry, a meat curry?

• 22:15Speaker 01

  No, well, it would be, I think it's sort of a Rogan Josh from, you know, somewhere in, somewhere nearby.

• 22:25Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, do you cook?

• 22:26Speaker 01

  I'm capable of cooking.

• 22:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  Do you make a good curry or?

• 22:29Speaker 01

  No, Marina makes, my wife makes very good curry.

• 22:32Stephen J. Dubner?

  She has an Indian parent, correct?

• 22:34Speaker 01

  That's absolutely right. Yeah.

• 22:35Stephen J. Dubner?

  Does the curry come from that or?

• 22:37Speaker 01

  It does, it does, it does. Her mother has got various secrets that she's passed on, which I can't tell you.

• 22:47Stephen J. Dubner?

  You were about to tell me your computer password, so I bet we could get you to tell us the curry secrets if we really tried.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  I don't know what they are.

• 22:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  In the interest of time, Howard, we'll move on to this. What's your favorite sport to play?

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Well, the sport I loved and which I miss on a bright, cold day, I absolutely physically miss it, is rugby. The game that I actually excelled at, the only game, one game I was really very proficient at was called the wall game, which I was quite good at, but that is not very widely played, unfortunately.

• 23:17Stephen J. Dubner?

  Is that a relative of rugby?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  That's a kind of rugby. It's a kind of relative of rugby, but you form two gigantic scrums against a wall and the objective is to grind your opponents to a paste against the wall by pushing and shoving. And I was quite good at that.

• 23:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  Good training for both politics and journalism.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. Interviewing techniques.

• 23:43Stephen J. Dubner?

  Favorite sport to watch these days?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Ah, boy. Well, I tell you what I loved. I, I, I, I watch all sports with pleasure. But I think I, I, I got into for the first time and hadn't really enjoyed before is this NFL thing, American football. Yeah. I mean, wow. Our propaganda has worked. We've been bringing it to London increasingly. Actually, it's, yeah, it is working. And I, I couldn't believe it. I, I, because I not only did the, the atmosphere itself was incre- it was amazing. But as I watched it, I actually, I understood what was happening and I could see the skill. Normally, I suppose, what I watch, you know, rugby, tennis, football, the usual. Yeah. And who do you support in football? Oh, God. This is gonna get you in trouble? No, well, no, it's, it just exposes my lack of sort of, of street cred. I didn't

• 24:29Speaker 01

  really have a, a, a football team that passionately, passionately support. I should I? I support all London sides. Well, that's not saying, that's 150 clubs or something, but there's none that makes your heartbeat, you're not Arsenal is? England. How about England? England. I support England. My condolences then. I'm sorry, sorry, pathetic answer. That's the best I can do on football. No, I, I just feel bad for you because they're such a, a difficult team to support. They're, they're, they, they have that brief flurry of optimism every World Cup and then collapse in a cloud of fatalism that was preordained and it's just sad to watch. Yeah. I think we, I really think we should be more like, you know, we, we should have, like, what was it? Ode and Couste Huessein with, with, you know, we should, when, when

• 25:11Speaker 01

  they come back next time, we should just, you know, threaten to do something in the changing rooms of those guys unless they, they sharpen up. It's just unbelievable. The trouble is, I think, that the, they are such successful players for their clubs, that they, you know, you asked about clubs, that, that they don't really, for some reason in England, we haven't done what they've done in Germany and built up the esprit de corps, the, the loyalty to England as an entity. And, and so we don't have a great national, as, as good a national side as, as we could, I think. Anyway, that'll get, that'll get, that'll get me into probably more trouble than anything I've ever said, but there, there you go. Tell me something that most people don't know about you. More people, my first name is, is Alexander rather than, rather than Boris. How about that? Will that do? Your family calls you Al. They call me. Yeah, that's absolutely true.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  So the next time we see you. If you shout Al in the street at me, I will, I will, I will give a guilty start. What do you not give a guilty start at if someone shouts it at you in the street? Would you? If you somebody, someone who said, you Tory tosser, I would, I would take it as a badge of honor.

• 26:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  So here's a question. What do you think will eventually lead to the demise of humankind? And when will it happen?

• 26:19Speaker 01

  I think the demise of humankind will

• 26:24Speaker 01

  happen

• 26:28Speaker 01

  before we discover the secret of immortality.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  I've always thought that there was a kind of that the gods were engaged in it. There's a sort of wager, a cosmic wager going on about whether mankind will destroy itself before it discovers the secret of perpetuating individual human beings. And, you know, it's kind of like trading places. You know, there are two old gods somewhere who've taken a very small bet, one obel, or one, you know, one drachma. And one's saying mankind's going to wipe itself out, and the other's saying, nah, nah, nah, they're gonna, they're gonna discover immortality, and the race is on. I think that we will I, you know, I think the biggest threat that we have is

• 27:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  It sounds as though you're not very worried about climate change.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  I'm

• 27:18Stephen J. Dubner?

  You've written quite

• 27:19Speaker 01

  No, I worried, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't think climate change presents, I'm obviously clear with you, I don't think, you ask about the extinction of the human race, I believe that mankind, humanity, is well up to the task of finding the technological solutions to, to climate change, that we are going to find them, we will deal with it, we will manage that problem. That is not the thing that's going to extinguish us. What will extinguish us is catastrophic warfare, disease, you know, eventually the sun will become a red giant and engulf the inner solar system. And, you know, I think it's, that's only four billion years away. So we've got to, we've got to work. I'm encouraged by this Interstellar film, but I haven't seen it. I love the idea of it, but it's getting these

• 28:04Speaker 01

  bad reviews. I so wanted it to get good reviews, and it's really discouraged my hopes for, for, for finding that new world through the wormhole. You know, I, I, that was, do you know what I mean?

• 28:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  I, I, I was thinking there was the low, there was the low garden door. You must have liked the rover that just landed on the comet.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Oh, that's fantastic.

• 28:23Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, wonderful.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  It's a most wonderful thing. It's the greatest triumph of the European Space Agency. It's gone three hundred and sixteen million miles at a cost of more than a billion dollars. And it's finally landed on this uninhabitable, pointless piece of rock. And it's disappeared into a crater. And they can't, they can't find it. They can't, it's solar panels can no longer, are no longer receiving energy and it can't transmit. And that's sad. So it's gone all the way there, but we should send someone else, another, another craft as soon as we possibly can to go and help it.

• 28:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  Would you be willing to ride in that craft?

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would, God, I would love to. It's only ten years, apparently. Ten years. Would that, would you do it? Would you, would you want to go? Would you spend ten years?

• 29:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  I would not, but I applaud your initiative. And you would still be young enough to come back, become prime minister, serve a term or two there, then move here, establish residency because you were born here. Then you could become president of the United States. You'd be the first. And then people a hundred years from now will be writing books about you.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think the, the first thing is about as likely as the second. And back to Churchill for a second. I, he was a great technological optimist and enthusiast. And I think he certainly would have wanted to, to terraform new worlds if he could. He would have been out there. You know, he, don't forget, he was the guy who invented the tank and, and, or who didn't. He, he, his mind helped to, to drive it forward, he certainly. And he pioneered aviation and, and.

• 29:59Stephen J. Dubner?

  He was one of the first, you're right, one of the first humans to ride in an airplane in Europe, is that right?

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Well, that's absolutely right.

• 30:07Stephen J. Dubner?

  Or do I have that wrong?

• 30:07Speaker 01

  No, you're totally right. And, you know, it was, obviously, the first flight was, was here in, in Kitty Hawk in America. But it was only a few years later that Churchill was himself at the controls, at the controls of one of these crazy contraptions of, of

• 30:25Speaker 01

  rope and leather and so on. And, and he, he almost died several times and his instructors did die. You know, he was just deranged in his, in his bravery.

• 30:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  Thank you so much for bringing his history back to us. I think the mission of the book is wonderful, to remind generations now who Churchill was, what he did, for those who are starting to forget, or those who didn't know. And thank you so much for coming in to talk to us today about yourself. It's an honor. All best. Be well. Thank you.

• 31:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hey, podcast listeners. On the next Freakonomics Radio, the first of a two-part report on education reform. In this first episode, we focus on teacher skill. You may have heard that US teachers are, well...

• 31:23Speaker 03

  They're just a little bit below average.

• 31:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  But it isn't necessarily their fault.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  Yes, the way we train teachers is fundamentally broken in this country.

• 31:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  And how can the perception of the teaching occupation be changed?

• 31:39Speaker 04

  We have armed forces board airplanes first. Well, why not have armed forces and teachers board airplanes first?

• 31:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  Is the teacher skill gap the biggest piece of education reform? Yes and no. That's next time on Freakonomics Radio.

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC and Dubner Productions. Our staff includes David Herman, Greg Rosalsky, Greta Cohn, Caroline English, Susie Lechtenberg, and Chris Bannon, with help from Joel Werner. If you want more Freakonomics Radio, you can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or go to Freakonomics.com, where you'll find lots of radio, a blog, the books, and more.

• 32:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by EverPure. Is the value of AI not living up to the promise? The problem is probably your data, not your AI models. When it's scattered across different systems, getting your data AI-ready is a challenge. You keep your AI waiting and everything slows down. EverPure unifies your data so you can see it, understand it, and control it all from one simple place and get it AI-ready fast. Unlock the true value of your AI at everpuredata.com. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Ozempic. Innovation happens through rethinking what's possible, and when it comes to GLP-1s, Ozempic pill does just that.

• 33:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Learn more about Ozempic semaglutide tablets, 4 and 9 milligrams, by calling 1-833-OZEMPIC or visit ozempic.com to view the medication guide and ask your doctor what's possible with FDA-approved Ozempic pill. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern Company. The world and its energy needs are always changing. Southern Company's commitment to meeting this demand stays the same. That's because Southern Company believes energy is more than a utility, it's what powers possibilities. So they are looking ahead and investing $80 billion in infrastructure upgrades and are committed to fueling growth in ways that benefit all customers so that reliable

• 34:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  and affordable energy is accessible for generations to come. Go to southerncompany.com to learn more. Southern Company, building the future of energy.

• 34:20Speaker 05

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